Do Spider-Man's villains suck?

[theoneandonly]

most associate the heroes stature according to the caliber of villains he deals with and so some may feel that Spider Man has outgrown his villain gallery who have remained losers but then marvel has this compulsion to portray Peter stuck in a I can't cope with my life mode and have to play the class clown role which leads to scenes like Benjamin Grimm treating him like a loser and bullying him. in a FF comic he even complains about it saying that it's like having mean elder brothers who are constantly getting on his case. of course there have been moments where it's been acknowledged that he is a important part of the mu but then it always regresses to him getting stabbed by wolverine or getting hit by Ben etc. so both Spider man and his rogue gallery are in a vicious cycle where they ultimately return to the point where they still "suck" and are always getting ragged upon to their detriment. the same can be said about some of the rogues in the FF and cap gallery like the trapster and batroc the leaper.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Yeah but killing Gwen Stacy happened in the 70's. Sure things spun out of that like Sins Past and American Son, but just because it is a legendary moment in comics doesn't make Green Goblin a great villain nor does it make what came after good either. I'd argue that the only other thing people really gave a damn about with Norman was taking over SHIELD, and yet Green Goblin was barely present in Dark Avengers.

I disagree with that. Goblin in stories like Identity Crisis, Revenge of the Green Goblin, A Death in the Family, The Pulse Issues 1-6, Marvel Knights: Spider-Man proved himself to be a compelling villain. He is definitely the best of Spider-Man's villains in a thematic and design sense and in terms of personality. He's also the most aerodynamic of Spider-Man's villains and certainly pushes Spider-Man's web swinging and athletic abilities to a hilt. In video game terms, Goblin provides a Final Exam Boss. The guy against whom Spider-Man needs to use all his skills and abilities.

Green Goblin's big problem is that the whole patrician scion thing doesn't work. He's connected to Peter because Harry Osborn is his friend, but Harry Osborn is not an interesting character. Harry Osborn needs to be the guy caught in the middle between Peter and Goblin's fight and that's how it was established in the Lee-Romita era, but that doesn't work if Harry ends up being corrupted by Norman and becomes just as bad and if Peter isn't really close to him, as is the case for the majority of their relationship. Peter's relationships to Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane mean far more to him than any of his male friendships. And that's why the Night Gwen Stacy Died had Norman kill Gwen Stacy instead of Harry. The Red Goblin tried to replace it with some Osborn Family drama and it's not good as story because now Norman is going to corrupt his grandson, Normie.

There's also the fact that Norman Osborn seems to be on the whole the bigger Marvel wide threat, while Green Goblin persona is Spider-Man's threat. And when he worked in Thunderbolts, Norman being Goblin was seen as a joke and many point out how weird it was that he dressed up in Halloween on a glider. If Norman dressed up as Goblin to scare people and if in other stories villains make fun of that costume then it becomes a problem. And that's where editorial fails to maintain these characters.

And on to that point about toning down Green Goblin, Raimi Norman Osborn is probably one of the better versions. I say this because the comics have pretty much forgotten that their is a struggle between Norman and Goblin. He is violent, he can be a killer, but Norman himself is a highly flawed but overall good human.

I don't think that's right. In the movie, Norman is a terrible father to Harry, cold and passive, and even when he's nice, to Peter, it's done mostly to vent at his frustration about how his kid Harry is a disappointment. Willem Dafoe's Norman and Goblin aren't all that different from each other. The Goblin simply acts out on what Norman represses but feels deep down, and Norman doesn't have any moral issues about the Goblin being a lunatic mass murderer.

[SuperiorIronman]

Nobody beyond us remembers Identity Crisis, the reveal of him being behind the Clone Saga, or anything in Pulse though. The issue here is that Norman peaked too early and thus you can't expect people to care about that. It's probably why you end up with people going over the top with him like for some reason making him Carnage. As good as later stories are it simply can't get over the hurdle of TNGSD. Dark Reign was the only thing that came close to that but even then it's partially undercut by nobody at Marvel able to keep a story consistent.

I like Green Goblin, I really do, but Norman Osborn does kind of suck. It also doesn't help that his extended family are also kind of lame. His son was a Goblin but hates his guts and stayed largely out of affairs when he came back. His wife is a supervillain but Menace doesn't really have a clear motivation if any at all, and Normie isn't old enough to be a functional character yet. I really don't see the appeal in them. I also don't know why Emily Osborn of all characters was brought back if only to further make Norman a bastard if his wife was around the whole time but whatever.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I like Green Goblin, I really do, but Norman Osborn does kind of suck. It also doesn't help that his extended family are also kind of lame. His son was a Goblin but hates his guts and stayed largely out of affairs when he came back. His wife is a supervillain but Menace doesn't really have a clear motivation if any at all, and Normie isn't old enough to be a functional character yet. I really don't see the appeal in them. I also don't know why Emily Osborn of all characters was brought back if only to further make Norman a bastard if his wife was around the whole time but whatever.

That's more or less the big issue with Spider-Man villains. Even Goblin who's the best of them.

ITSV showed a good buffet of Spider-Man's rogues, and it basically made all of them thugs, including Liv Octopus who is the most accurate version of Dr. Octopus i.e. "thug-in-labcoat" and a gangster. The emotional issue and story is Miles' relationship with his family and with the Spiders, and Kingpin is basically the big heavy guy for him to wail on and come on top after he gets himself together.

I have to say that I liked Tombstone in Spider-Man PS4. He's this chill dude who you can imagine hanging out with and he matches Spider-Man with banter. In general, Hammerhead, Tombstone, Kingpin, the Enforcers, Crime Master, and even Frederick Foswell when he was the Big Man are better designed and more coherent as characters and figures. But they are all basically Dick Tracy gangsters. Entertaining but limited. The Spider-Slayer is a cool villain as well, but on the whole it's Spider-Man's own version of the Sentinel robots and the Sentinels in X-Men have better design and are scarier.

[Vegeta]

I've never found Galactus or Namor to be either complex or tragic. You described Hate Monger and Psych man's abilities not their personalities.

I regularly see Hate Monger appear on "worst of" Marvel villain lists, the Adolph Hitler clone reveal is considered pretty eye-rollingly bad.

And what X-Men fans actually get excited for the return of Grayson Creed or Senator Kelly? I must of missed that memo. The general reaction is "sigh, why hasn't Wolverine beheaded these fools yet?"

[The Overlord]

I fail to see what is complex about Batman villains. Most of these guys are outdated caricatures of mental illness. Some of Spider-Man's villains by comparison actually feel like, you know, people.



The Shocker is considered rational in that unlike most super villains he doesn't fall victim to petty grudges. At no point has anyone claimed he is a moral person so I don't even know why this is a question.

Killing innocent people for money isn't moral (and again no one has ever tried to argue Shocker is a moral person) but it's pretty normal compared to poisoning a city's water supply for laughs.

Except how often is Electro, Sandman, Rhino, etc motivated by revenge rather than greed? It seems like 80% of the time they are committing profit driven crimes and just get annoyed that Spidey foils them. So really Shocker being driven by greed rather revenge seems very par for the course for Spidey

No offense, but if that's all there is to Shocker, he seems more like a plot device then a character, yeah they give him character moments, but the writers do not give him a valid motive for being a criminal in the first place or tie everything together to give him a cohesive personality and if Shocker is supposed to be intelligent, why can't he come with a better way to make money then robbing banks? If Shocker is just a plot device, fine, whatever, but you can't be a plot device and a great villain.

The Puppetmaster is great. A really underrated and unique villain, that secretly I think should be transplanted to Spider-Man for a few stories because I think he'd be a good match for someone like him. Mole Man is pretty cool and interesting and he shows up in Renew Your Vows (which actually has Spider-Man going against Marvel-wide rogues and outside his traditional wheelhouse. For instance, Mr. Sinister shows up). Then Annihilus, lord of the Negative Zone. And you have Namor who in two issues goes from random hobo that Johnny Storm runs into and then turns out to be ruler of Atlantis.

But you know Dr. Doom himself is better than every single Spider-Man rogue combined. So all you need is one.

It's generally true what the OP says that Spider-Man's rogues generally stand apart from his stories and are not very well connected to the themes and overarching story. Guys like Kraven and others give Spider-Man trouble when he has fought off Juggernaut and Firelord, and survived the Hulk and in that one JMS issue, Peter hints to MJ that he could take out the Hulk if it came down to it. And Wolverine and others take out minor rogues like them with no problem. But that to me is the problem of editorial and others not properly controlling the borders. For me this is not a bug, it's a feature. At the end of the day, the story is about Peter Parker and his supporting cast and his W/L balance. The supervillains and others are complications on top of this but it's not at the heart of what the stories are about. The Fantastic Four need a rich rogues gallery because by themselves they are fairly bland, or rather Reed and Sue Richards are really bland. The Thing and Johnny Storm are cool and fun, and they make you care for the FF and even then Johnny Storm is a far more interesting character as a supporting member to Spider-Man than in the FF. So the FF as a story depends on the villains and others responding to the FF, challenging them, and so on.

Puppet Master is not a well-defined character in terms of motives for being a criminal, there was a Ms. Marvel story in 2007 where the writers turned him into a cruel psychopath and a sex trafficker, he seems so muddled as a character, if the writers do not have a handle on this motives and personality where they can turn him into a total monster and say ''yeah, that's in character'', I am not sure how readers are supposed to know what his deal is. They really need to nail down a motive and personality for him, rather then writing him any way they want this week.

Same deal with Mole Man, the writers can't decide whether he wants to attack the surface world for mistreatment from the past or whether he wants to defend if his underground kingdom, because Mole Man attacking the surface world will endanger his kingdom when the surface world, counter attacks, so leaving the surface world alone would make his kingdom safer and sometimes he just some generic bad guy who attacks the FF with monsters for flimsy reasons.

I like Annihlius, but he is underwritten sometimes, he went from blowing up planets in Annilhation to Human Torch single handily beating him up and dragging him around in chains, what a fall from greatness.

And a lot of FF's rogues having been living off Silver age fumes for decades, guys like Wizard or Red Ghost seem like they have not relevant in a long while.

Yeah, I like Doom better than anyone Spidey villain, but the FF's rogues gallery as a whole is not as good as Spidey's rogue's gallery, not even close.

Is Red Ghost better than Green Goblin? Is Wizard better than Dr. Octopus? Heck, I rag on Shocker, but least he has a better gimmick then Trapster, the guy who uses a glue gun to commit crimes.

Heck outside of Doom, most Spidey villains have better character moments then FF characters, you have dr. Octopus is a mirror version of Peter Parker, Electro's self-doubt issues, Rhino getting married and then his wife getting killed by a Rhino copycat, leaving Rhino to become bitter and jaded. All of that is more interesting than yet another Frightful Four story where Wizard is the main villain and we do not learn anything about him besides he is smug jerk who is mad that Reed was on the cover of Vanity fair last week and not him (that's the same character aspect we see in all these Frightful Four stories).

Any problems I have with spidey's rogue's gallery goes double for the FF's rogues gallery. Frankly, I think most marvel rogues galleries need a big revamp, but I do think Spidey rogues are fairing pretty well overall, but they could be better.

[Iowa]

Dude , it's all about the writer

any character can be super cool

and............

any character can be super lame

[Mister Mets]

Dr. Octopus. The Vulture. The Sandman. The Lizard. The Goblins. Kraven. The Rhino. The Kingpin. Venom.

This is a pretty good rogues gallery. And then you go outside the top ten.

Ask almost anyone and they would probably agree Spider-Man has the second best rogues gallery, just behind Batman. They may not get as many in-depth and complex stories told about them in comparison, but they all get their highlight moments that make them stand out, and are just really memorable in general thanks to their designs and personality.

There would be some who argue Spider-Man's rogues gallery is the best.

Fair enough, but then Shocker is not a great character, he is just a plot device, if his characterization is that thin, he may as well be reduced to a villain who provides an action scene before the real story starts (like the Wrecking Crew) and just be a grunt in villain team-up stories or a one dimensional henchman villain for better villains, rather then being the focus of a story.

Captain Cold is a villain similar to Shocker but generally is better written, IMO.

Frankly, Shocker makes more sense in animated adaptions, where he is just a normal thug given this tech by a third party to work as a merc, Shocker somehow having the skills to invent his tech, but cannot come up with a better use for it then a robbing bank is pretty weak. Really uneducated villains like Rhino and Sandman should be robbing banks, the more intelligent villains should have more intelligent schemes.

Another problem is sometimes the writers will give a villain character development, but its done in some obscure title or something and then its forgotten, like one of Mysterio's better character-based stories being from an obscure title like web Spinners, you have to reinforce this stuff, not just do it once in some obscure title hardly anyone read.

To me, a good writer can balance giving weight to Peter and his personal life and still give these villains interesting, consistent characterization.

Look at Vulture in Spider-Man Home Coming, he was a well-defined character who fit in with Spidey's personal trials,

Captain Cold tops the Shocker, but the Shocker isn't really a top ten villain.

The FF's villains are second to none when it comes to depth. Dr. Doom alone is arguably the most complex villain in comics.

The best Fantastic Four villain is great. The second and third-best (Galactus and the Skrulls) are also excellent. And then?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There would be some who argue Spider-Man's rogues gallery is the best.

Spider-Man's rogues gallery is definitely not the best. There's not much thematic depth and variety. Like there aren't any good female villains whereas Batman has Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, Lady Shiva. Black Cat isn't half as good a character as Selina Kyle of which she is a ripoff.

Scarecrow in terms of the whole trickster/illusionist thing is a far superior villain to Mysterio whose full potential is rarely utilized and when it is, it's often to make him like Scarecrow anyway, such as that trick in Old Man Logan where he gaslights Logan into killing the X-Men. Sandman isn't as good as Clayface is. Clayface being a washed up actor and a merge of different other Clayfaces has the personality to go with being a shape-shifting freak whereas Flint Marko is a two-bit thug and moron, and with an ugly civilian design (that stupid green striped T-Shirt).

If you compare head-to-head and counterpart to counterpart it's debatable to call any Spider-Man villain the best version of that character archetype. Green Goblin isn't as good as Joker, Dr. Octopus isn't as good as Dr. Doom, Luthor, or Dr. Sivana to list some of the most iconic and important mad scientists. And comics historians will argue that The Octopus from Eisner's The Spirit (who inspired Miller's Kingpin) is the best villain called Octopus in comics history.

I guess you could say Kingpin is the best mobster supervillain but then it's debatable if Kingpin is a great Spider-Man villain. Because the version of Kingpin that is great is the one Frank Miller wrote into Daredevil. The Pre-Miller Daredevil Kingpin in Spider-Man comics, i.e. Sydney Greenstreet in the L-R era isn't all that special, and Post-Daredevil, Kingpin's most prominent stories in 616 Spider-Man such as "Read 'Em in Weep" and Back in Black involve Spider-Man humiliating him thoroughly. Ultimate Spider-Man had a great Kingpin story in "Learning Curve" but that was still Miller's Kingpin in a Spider-Man story. I mean we can say Juggernaut is a great Spider-Man villain, or Firelord if we go by that.

Captain Cold tops the Shocker, but the Shocker isn't really a top ten villain.

Well Captain Cold is a minor villain in the scheme of things.

The best Fantastic Four villain is great. The second and third-best (Galactus and the Skrulls) are also excellent. And then?

Mole Man, Namor, Puppetmaster, Annihilus, Molecule Man, The Mad Thinker. Dr. Doom, Galactus, Mole Man, Annihilus are the best versions of their character archetype. Dr. Doom is the greatest mad scientist and ruler-of-state as supervillain in comics, directly inspiring Potus Luthor and Norman's time as head of hammer or Mayor Fisk. Mole Man is the ultimate subterranean villain, so iconic that The Incredibles parodied him with the Underminer. And Annihilus and the Negative Zone are the most iconic interdimensional threats.

[WebSlingWonder]

Spider-Man's rogues gallery is definitely not the best. There's not much thematic depth and variety. Like there aren't any good female villains whereas Batman has Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, Lady Shiva. Black Cat isn't half as good a character as Selina Kyle of which she is a ripoff.

Scarecrow in terms of the whole trickster/illusionist thing is a far superior villain to Mysterio whose full potential is rarely utilized and when it is, it's often to make him like Scarecrow anyway, such as that trick in Old Man Logan where he gaslights Logan into killing the X-Men. Sandman isn't as good as Clayface is. Clayface being a washed up actor and a merge of different other Clayfaces has the personality to go with being a shape-shifting freak whereas Flint Marko is a two-bit thug and moron, and with an ugly civilian design (that stupid green striped T-Shirt).

If you compare head-to-head and counterpart to counterpart it's debatable to call any Spider-Man villain the best version of that character archetype. Green Goblin isn't as good as Joker, Dr. Octopus isn't as good as Dr. Doom, Luthor, or Dr. Sivana to list some of the most iconic and important mad scientists. And comics historians will argue that The Octopus from Eisner's The Spirit (who inspired Miller's Kingpin) is the best villain called Octopus in comics history.

I guess you could say Kingpin is the best mobster supervillain but then it's debatable if Kingpin is a great Spider-Man villain. Because the version of Kingpin that is great is the one Frank Miller wrote into Daredevil. The Pre-Miller Daredevil Kingpin in Spider-Man comics, i.e. Sydney Greenstreet in the L-R era isn't all that special, and Post-Daredevil, Kingpin's most prominent stories in 616 Spider-Man such as "Read 'Em in Weep" and Back in Black involve Spider-Man humiliating him thoroughly. Ultimate Spider-Man had a great Kingpin story in "Learning Curve" but that was still Miller's Kingpin in a Spider-Man story. I mean we can say Juggernaut is a great Spider-Man villain, or Firelord if we go by that.



Well Captain Cold is a minor villain in the scheme of things.



Mole Man, Namor, Puppetmaster, Annihilus, Molecule Man, The Mad Thinker. Dr. Doom, Galactus, Mole Man, Annihilus are the best versions of their character archetype. Dr. Doom is the greatest mad scientist and ruler-of-state as supervillain in comics, directly inspiring Potus Luthor and Norman's time as head of hammer or Mayor Fisk. Mole Man is the ultimate subterranean villain, so iconic that The Incredibles parodied him with the Underminer. And Annihilus and the Negative Zone are the most iconic interdimensional threats.

I'm starting to get the impression that you have a lot of contempt for Spider-Man and the greater "web" that he embodies. It seems like every time we speak to you, it's always about how something is wrong with the mythos rather than right, except for a few key things like the Bugle, MJ, and Uncle Ben. There's over 50 years of this character's history and his larger mythos is so rich and compelling, including his enemies. What gives?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I'm starting to get the impression that you have a lot of contempt for Spider-Man and the greater "web" that he embodies.

If you get that impression, then I am sorry. It definitely is not my opinion and my sentiments and I made a mistake in expressing my opinion.

My point is that Spider-Man doesn't need a good roster of rogues gallery. His villains are weak by design because the overall purpose of the story is that Peter Parker and his supporting cast will always be more developed, more interesting, and more at the center of the stories. If you try and give his villains additional depth, or worse make them sympathetic, you end up ruining the story. Like in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy, they spend so much time building up Harry Osborn when that character is not capable of depth and real purpose. And it takes away from Peter's story.

Not all comic heroes and stories are the same. It's very much the nature of the character and genre in which they are in. Superman for instance has a pretty bad rogues gallery. That's something even people who work on Superman will tell you, Mort Weisinger, the famous editor pointed that out, as did Bruce Timm who worked on Superman and who brought in Darkseid and the Fourth World and Intergang to improve that.

The reason is that Superman, and Spider-Man (albeit Spider-Man's rogues are better than Superman's), are primarily about Clark Kent and Peter Parker. The villains and all that are simply obstacles in the stories of their personal growth. They are not important by themselves.

Batman for instance is a detective. He goes out hunting down villains, so he gets into their head trying to figure out how they think and act, so villain psychology and characteristics, and Batman's relationship to them is at the heart of his stories. That's why as a rule, Batman's villains have always been far more interesting than him and his supporting cast (mostly a bunch of older men -- Gordon, Alfred, Lucius Fox -- and Robin). The Fantastic Four likewise are fairly boring figures with the exception of the Thing. Reed and Sue are total bores. But that's important and it's a feature because it allows you to put more work into the villains and world-building.

I am only describing features, not bugs.

[your_name_here]

Dude , it's all about the writer

any character can be super cool

and............

any character can be super lame

100% this.
It doesn’t require any overthinking.

[Bor]

100% this.
It doesn’t require any overthinking.

Agreed.

As mentioned by others Kravens has both been used extremely well and extremely lame.

The rhino too. In a lot of his appearnces he is nothing but a brute, but then there are stories where he shows great depth, atleast as much as many so called “less sucky” Batman villians.
Its not like every Joker shows great depth either. Not to mention all the b-listers where it usually boils down to a gimmick and no real character.

[The Negative Zone]

Most of the Spider-Man villains are good, except Electro, Shocker, and Scorpion needs some work. I can't remember much about them character wise. Scorpion had the thing with being stuck in his costume if I recall but he probably needs something new.

[SpideyCeo]

most associate the heroes stature according to the caliber of villains he deals with and so some may feel that Spider Man has outgrown his villain gallery who have remained losers but then marvel has this compulsion to portray Peter stuck in a I can't cope with my life mode and have to play the class clown role which leads to scenes like Benjamin Grimm treating him like a loser and bullying him. in a FF comic he even complains about it saying that it's like having mean elder brothers who are constantly getting on his case. of course there have been moments where it's been acknowledged that he is a important part of the mu but then it always regresses to him getting stabbed by wolverine or getting hit by Ben etc. so both Spider man and his rogue gallery are in a vicious cycle where they ultimately return to the point where they still "suck" and are always getting ragged upon to their detriment. the same can be said about some of the rogues in the FF and cap gallery like the trapster and batroc the leaper.

Sums up what i think, Spidey rouges are good characters, theyre just lame and unappealing adversaries to Spidey outside of a few villains that actually serve to rival Peter as a superhuman and a personal shadow of himself.